


At the Bottom of the Slope

by yujacheong



Category: Knightfall (TV 2017)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, Bathing/Washing, Comfort Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season/Series 02, Suicide Attempt, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-04-06 22:05:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19071610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/pseuds/yujacheong
Summary: ta·lusn1:a sloping mass of rock fragments at the foot of a cliff.2:the sloping side of an earthwork, or of a wall that tapers to the top.They found him living like a mad hermit in a squalid hut hidden amidst the rubble at the bottom of a dried up waterfall.We need you, they said.The King of France wishes to destroy our Order, they said.At first, Talus tried to flee from them. When that didn’t succeed, he tried to fight them, and when still they persisted, he hurled terrible obscenities impugning the honor of their mothers at them…but in the end, he agreed to return with them.Only, the problem was – he had completely lost his faith…





	At the Bottom of the Slope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psychomachia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/gifts).



> In this ’verse, Landry never disgraced himself with the Queen and remains a Templar in good standing. Talus, after a decade in captivity, has become embittered and disillusioned with the Order.

They found him living like a mad hermit in a squalid hut hidden amidst the rubble at the bottom of a dried up waterfall.

 _We need you_ , they said. _The King of France wishes to destroy our Order_ , they said.

At first, Talus tried to flee from them. When that didn’t succeed, he tried to fight them, and when still they persisted, he hurled terrible obscenities impugning the honor of their mothers at them…but in the end, he agreed to return with them.

Only, the problem was – he had completely lost his faith…

 

*

 

“It’s Master Talus, Master. It’s past curfew, and he’s not in his bed. We…we think…”

Landry isn’t a Master anymore, strictly speaking, not since the Crown’s seizure of the Paris Temple, but he does not bother to correct his anxious Initiate Brother. Instead, he merely dismisses the young man with a curt wave of his hand and calls for his horse, for Landry already knows without having to be told exactly what everyone in the Chartres Temple thinks:

Talus has gone to fight the Luciferians. The odds are insurmountable, which means therefore that he wants what ten years as a prisoner of the Saracens after the Siege of Acre failed to accomplish. _Talus wants to die._

They cannot allow this wish to be granted. Talus is too important. The Order needs him.

And Landry is his brother’s keeper.

Landry rides into the Luciferians’ forest camp in the early hours of morning. The haphazard trail of bodies scattered about in the leaf litter is easy enough to follow, and the sounds of battle are easier to follow still. By the wan light which precedes the rising of the sun, Landry can see Talus. The last four surviving Luciferians encircle him. He is bloodied, breathing heavily, and probably close to exhaustion. They are closing in. He is moments from death.

Landry draws his sword and spurs his horse into a galloping charge. He dispatches the first two Luciferians before they have time to react and takes down the third as he’s coming about for a second charge. The fourth and final Luciferian brandishes a spiked club and roars a defiant challenge. Landry dismounts. He evades the first wild swing of the club with ease, noting how the Luciferian leaves his left side habitually unguarded. After three additional passes, the duel is done. Not a single member of the infernal, devil-worshiping cult is left alive.

“Brother Talus.”

Talus is lying upon the ground on his side, curled into a tight, fetal ball. He is shuddering. He doesn’t deign to reply to the sound of his name.

“The curfew is meant to apply to everyone, you know. Even Initiate Masters,” Landry says, his tone of voice deliberately nonchalant. He doesn’t mean to threaten; that’s not his preferred style.

If only his comment about the curfew weren’t so deadly serious. The Knights Templar are under siege; the King of France has been disseminating malicious rumors and lies meant to set the Pope against them. He has already seized the Paris Temple where lately Landry was Commander and Temple Master, and to wipe clean his debts, he would wipe the Order itself from the face of the Earth. Moreover, he has been openly threatening to execute as heretics any unfortunate Templars he might manage to get his hands on…

…which is why there is a curfew. Each and every Templar life is precious, and Talus’s, with his proven expertise in the training of new Initiate Brothers needed to bolster the Order’s fast-thinning ranks, is more precious than most. If only he weren’t so eager to die.

“Bugger off, Landry. I’m not a Templar anymore, and I’ve renounced my vows, so your blasted curfew doesn’t apply to me. I am an old man. Go away and let me die in peace.”

“I’m sorry, but you know I can’t do that,” Landry replies as he gets down on his knees beside Talus and tugs him up into a sitting position so that he may inspect him closely. Although befouled by mud and splatters of blood, Talus does not appear to have been seriously injured, thank the Lord. Any injury sustained, such as it is, must be to the soul. “You are among the greatest teachers our Order has yet known. So teach me. Help me to understand,” he presses. “You know what threats we face. Why do you abandon the Order in our hour of greatest need?”

“I did not abandon the Order. The Order abandoned _me_ ,” Talus replies fiercely. Angry tears spill from his eyes. “ _God_ abandoned me.”

Landry shakes his head in disbelief. “He _died_ on the cross for your sins, Brother Talus. He has not abandoned you.”

“And how would _you_ know? _You_ didn’t spend the last ten years chained to the wall of a Saracen prison. _You_ weren’t… _You’ve_ never…” Talus chokes, unable to speak further. His expression crumples with the horror and grief and unending torments of memory.

What Talus says is true, as far as it goes. Landry cannot begin to imagine what nightmares, what diabolical tortures, Talus must have endured. Anything he might say in response would be cheap. Insincere. But maybe, Landry thinks, reasoned words aren’t the right approach.

He reaches out and tries to smooth out the tangled mess of Talus’s hair. He cups his cheek, stained with tear tracks. He rests his forehead against Talus’s. Talus seems at once to recoil and yearn into his Landry’s touch, and thus encouraged, Landry pulls him into a tight embrace. Talus freezes, stiff-backed, and for a long moment Landry thinks he might pull away, but then he seems to deflate, and collapse, and all of a sudden he is but a small man, and ageing, a greybeard, dead weight in Landry’s arms and wracked with pitiful sobs.

“You are not abandoned,” Landry says.

Talus buries his face into Landry’s breast and cries harder. Landry strokes his head and murmurs soothing nothings as one might to a child.

When they ride into the yard of the Chartres Temple, they are two to a horse like the ancient sigil of their Order come to miraculous life. Landry knows that his brother knights are staring and that Talus, exhausted and slumped against him, does not wish to be made a spectacle of. So they don’t stop. They go straight inside instead, and Landry ushers Talus into an empty sleeping cell and bids him to take a seat on the bed. They will have privacy and safety here.

“The stench of death clings to us both. We should bathe,” Landry says. “Shall I help you undress?”

Talus does not acknowledge Landry’s question, and he sits, unmoving. “You can’t wash clean the past, Landry.”

“Nevertheless. When our Lord washed the feet of the sinner, it was as an act of love and brotherhood. So let me help wash you now.”

Talus turns his head and looks toward a small window set high in the wall. There is nothing to see from this angle. With a shrug, Landry disrobes and bares himself – one should never require of another what one unwilling to do oneself – and proceeds to remove Talus’s soiled clothing. Talus does not assist in Landry’s efforts, but neither does he resist.

When they are both as naked as the day they were born, Landry sees why Talus would prefer not to be looked at. His flesh is a landscape of ugly, raised scars, crisscrossed, scars upon scars upon scars…and not just from old battle wounds, either. He has been flogged. Cut. Branded. _Tortured._ Over and over and over again. Not an inch of him has been left unmarked.

Many men would recoil with disgust at the sight, but Landry is not one of them. He takes the rag from the water in the basin and, as gently as he is able, begins to wash Talus clean.

It takes a long time. Talus does not like to bathe, evidently, and the sour, musky smell which rises from his damp skin, along with layer upon layer upon layer of grime Landry manages to scrub off, suggests that he has not done so in months, possibly years. It’s yet another sign of Talus’s self-neglect, his shame and self-hatred, and it makes Landry’s heart ache. This isn’t right; it _can’t_ be right. Landry scrubs at Talus’s flesh until it is tender and pink. He will show Talus that he is wrong…

At some point – he’s not sure when, perhaps when he is running his fingers through Talus’s hair and beard, attempting with limited success to work out the tangles – he realizes that Talus has an erection. It is pointed straight at Landry. Talus seems to realize this at the very same moment Landry does, and he remarks, with rough, characteristically earthy humor, “My, my. Would you look at that! I didn’t think it worked anymore.”

His eyes, blue as the heart of a candle’s flame set deep in a craggy face, sweep up and down Landry’s form appraisingly. Landry feels the intent of those eyes, feels the appreciation, feels the heat, and he tingles. He is not used to this, to being attractive to someone so admired, revered. His penis twitches. The muscles in his groin clench and release spasmodically. It takes effort to force himself not to respond in kind. Their gazes lock. Meaning passes between them.

Talus looks away first. He shakes his head, rueful. “Ah, Landry, if only – were I a younger man…”

The words sweep through Landry like rays of sunshine. Oh! Landry admires this impossible man, and he adores him…even if on occasion he _has_ torn at his beard so as not to give into the temptation to kill Talus himself. “Why if only you were younger?” he asks, braver than he actually feels. “We are as God made us…”

Talus’s lips are parted slightly, slack with desire. Landry can see how beautiful a man Talus once was. No, still is. No turning back. Age makes no difference. Landry surrenders to temptation and kisses him, fitting their mouths together as he wraps his arms around Talus, pulling him in close so that their chests are flush. Their erections – Landry is stiff and swollen now also, and Talus whimpers brokenly into the kiss when they brush into each other.

“Landry, I-I…I haven’t…it’s…it’s been _years_ since…I _want_ …”

“Hush. I know. I want it too.”

They fall into bed, limbs intertwined. Every touch aches; their tears flow freely. There is no shame in wanting this, in _needing_ this. But Landry is too inexperienced, and Talus too desperate, for them to do much more this first time than rock and grind their hips, sliding back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, tension mounting until Talus is arching and growling and coating their bellies with his seed, and Landry follows, coming in a long, strong series of cathartic pulses that never seems to end.

Afterwards, they lie together and cuddle, lost in comfort, sharing the same air, breathing in the intoxicating scents of fresh sweat and sex. Landry, being younger, is much sooner to recover, and when Talus retracts his foreskin and exposes the glistening head, presses his thumb expertly into the frenulum on the underside, the sensation jolts Landry with sweetness. He guides Landry into the scorching hot aperture between his buttocks, sinking down, down, _down_ onto him, until Landry’s scrotum is crushed beneath the weight and they both shout loudly enough for every knight in the Temple to hear them in the throes of their passion.

Talus rides him joyfully, with a deep, deliberate rhythm. They take things more slowly, trying to make it last. Talus bends forward to kiss Landry, to nuzzle behind his ear, beard ticklish, lips curved into a warm, sly smile. His hair, loose and free, falls like a curtain of liquid silver around their faces. They are overcome with love. Landry finds Talus’s renewed erection and strokes it in counterpoint to his thrusts, knees bent and heels dug into the mattress for added leverage as he drives them both to near-simultaneous, annihilating completion.

They miss evening prayers altogether. They miss the next morning mass as well. Nobody in the Temple seems to hold this against them.

 

*

 

“If you think regular acts of sodomy are going to restore my faith in God, you’re even madder than I am!” Talus points out during his seventh night sharing Landry’s bed.

Though he is as free with his insults as ever, he has stopped talking about leaving the Templars and renouncing his vows. To Landry, this counts as a victory…both for the Order and for himself.

“Do you know where architects first got the idea for taluses?” Landry asks instead. He is propped up on one elbow, and he enjoys looking at Talus like this, when his guard is lowered and the gnarled knots of his ageing body are smoothed in relaxation. “Well,” he continues without waiting for Talus’s reply, “even the tallest mountain gets eroded by wind and rain. The broken pieces of collect at the bottom in a sloping pile. That pile is called a talus. Our taluses were inspired by this natural formation, and as you know, they have proven most effective in fortress defense during the Crusades.”

“Is this little tale supposed to have a point, Landry?” Talus asks. The words are curt, but the tone is light, affectionate.

“Just this: Broken things don’t have to be useless. In fact, they can be amongst our greatest structural assets.”

“Hmph!” Talus snorts. “If you’re this eager to teach such nonsense, why aren’t _you_ training the Initiates instead of me?”

But Landry knows he understands what is meant.


End file.
